Grassroots News & Progressive Views

The response to Trump’s total moral failure to reckon with what happened in Charlottesville last Saturday prompted an immediate response from citizens all over the country. Over 700 rallies and marches were held in the aftermath, including here in San Diego.

There has been resistance from elected officials and candidates; CEOs; the faith based community; talk show hosts and citizens. Many, many citizens.

The Republican Party stands alone–spineless, calculating and morally bankrupt in their unwillingness to call out and cut off Trump. [Read more…]

“It is possible to be in debt, to be lovelorn, and to be racist. They are not mutually exclusive.”

The recent shooting rampage at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment complex in University City left one person dead and seven persons wounded. This is indisputable.

We also know that the dead victim and wounded were all African Americans and the shooter, who was subsequently shot by the police, was white.

Local news coverage of the event has unsurprisingly focused on the possible motives for San Diego’s scene of American Carnage. While shooter Peter Selis’ troubled financial history and recent break up with his girl friend appear to provide reasonable motivations, the possibility of racial animus has become a contentious issue.[Read more…]

Over 500 freshly-printed copies of Howl and Other Poems were seized by the government, rather than allowed to exist as thought-provoking literature. The trial against City Lights Books made its way to the California State Superior Court in 1957, where Judge Clayton Horn ruled in favor of Ferlinghetti and the ACLU.” [Read more…]

Who knew that the Cerutti Mastodon site along SR54 in San Diego may be “the oldest in situ, well-documented archaeological site in North America and, as such, substantially revises the timing of arrival of Homo into the Americas”? And what does that actually mean?

San Diego has been a rich source of paleontological discoveries. A 300,000 year old mammoth was excavated during the construction of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in downtown San Diego. Additional excavation ten feet below the skull and tusks of the mammoth revealed the 500,000 year old skeleton of a California Gray Whale.

The significance of these two sites are quite different. The mastodon site is about much more than the animal life in the region one hundred and thirty thousand years ago. [Read more…]

Resistance, Vision and Community

Chicano Park exists in Barrio Logan because of the construction of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge and the loss of property and displacement of lives that it caused. The community responded in a powerful, unique way. Residents couldn’t stop the construction, but they did lay claim to the land beneath the immense concrete pillars that enabled travelers above to make their way across the Coronado Bridge, oblivious to the transformation occurring below them. The land that was being readied for a California Highway Patrol substation was re-claimed as a long promised park. The reclamation began as a twelve day occupation that involved hundreds of people.

City Heights was likewise changed forever when eight city blocks along 40th Street- people’s homes and businesses–were scoured from the face of the earth in the early 1990’s to make way for the last connecting link of I-15, which extends from Canada to Mexico. City Heights would become a scorched earth community divided by an enormous ditch in keeping with Caltrans signature construction style. [Read more…]

Amikas Emergency Housing Expo

The super bloom of wild flowers in the most inhospitable of places–the Anza Borrego desert– has captured the attention of San Diegans, who are flocking to get a glimpse of this short lived phenomenon.

Closer to home, an equally remarkable blossoming takes the form of the cluster of cabins that has sprung up like wild flowers at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in North Park. San Diego has been the most inhospitable of places for enacting solutions to our growing humanitarian crisis of homelessness. Volunteer activists from Amikas have stepped into the leadership vacuum, displaying what can be done to address the immediate housing needs of the most vulnerable among us.

The demonstration project that volunteers designed and are building on the church site represent one low cost, practical approach to providing bridge housing by way of small communities with safe sleeping cabins. [Read more…]

What first comes to mind when you think about the presidential contenders in the primary and general election? Do you recall Little Marco? Low Energy Jeb? Crooked Hillary, Lyin’ Ted? Trump had a knack for applying a descriptive label that successfully branded his opponent and stuck throughout the campaign.

The description was used repetitively in debates, at Trump rallies, in tweets and interviews. The press amplified them through their coverage of Trump.

It is remarkable that Trump himself has eluded a descriptive label that conjures up his narcissism, fascist bent, recklessness and corruption or the swirling cloud of illegitimacy surrounding his presidency. [Read more…]

From City Heights Town Hall to Airport Protest

“Tell me what democracy looks like!”

“This is what democracy looks like!”

The chant ran up and down the whole length of Terminal 2 of San Diego’s Lindbergh Airport, up and down the opposite side of the terminal and could be heard on the second floor walkway. Three lines of cars ran between the two and those cars honked their horns while passengers waved flags and held signs outside of the windows.

An estimated 2,000 of us put our bodies on the public sidewalks of the airport to protest the fear and chaos engendered by Trump’s recent executive order restricting immigration from seven Muslim countries. [Read more…]

The unveiling of the Ministry of Truth

There are 1,457 days left in the Trump presidency, assuming that he doesn’t get bored and quit, is impeached or that the skies rain glass upon us all.

Trump’s inaugural address “(Liberal) Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” made it clear that he is only interested in his adoring base–the 46% of the voting public who narrowly installed him in the White House. The strategy among his handlers is clearly to let Trump be Trump while they roll up their sleeves and dismantle our democratic institutions.

The massive Women’s March in Washington on the first day of the Trump presidency was successful on many levels, not the least of which is that it got under Trump’s thin skin–bigly. The half million or so people who showed up were not Trump’s adoring base. [Read more…]

“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution”

The daily dose of headlines generated from the cesspool that is Trumpistan is horrifying. Enraging. Endless. And Trump hasn’t even been sworn in as president yet.

While we cannot let up on our resistance, maintaining our esprit de corps over the next years is also essential. Friday, January 20 has not just one but two opportunities to hit the dance floor. [Read more…]

Editor Note: Congressman John Lewis told Chuck Todd in a recent interview that he did not see Trump as a legitimate president and that he would not attend the inauguration. Congressman Lewis brings the voice of moral authority and courage to his decision. The following is an article from the SDFP archives published on March 2, 2014.

On Saturday March 1, Congressman John Lewis received the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) Peacemaker award for his outstanding work as a civil rights champion and inspiring congressional leader. The reception, dinner and award ceremony were held at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines. I did not attend, but there is no doubt in my mind that the guests were moved by his powerful oratory as he embraced another opportunity at that event to promote non-violent action as the only democratic remedy and response to injustice in the world.

Earlier in the day, Congressman John Lewis entered the Oak Park Public Library and became Storyteller John Lewis. In the intimacy of this small library, Lewis was clearly in his element. The Oak Park Library has no meeting room. Over eighty people sat and stood in the heart of this library surrounded by computers and book stacks. We sang This Little Light of Mine, lead by Lisa Sanders followed by a brief, heartfelt introduction from 4th district Councilwoman Myrtle Cole, the first African American woman on the city council.

In this place, Congressman Lewis unhurriedly and deftly wove the personal details of his own life, about how he grew up in rural Alabama on a farm in the segregationist south. We were immediately drawn into the storyteller’s enchanted circle.[Read more…]

The 115th Congress convened for the first time earlier this week. After their disastrous behind closed doors attempt to gut the Office of Ethics went down in flames, they decided that it was time to concentrate on the number one priority–Repeal and Replace Obamacare.

Repeal and Replace Obamacare has been the Republican mantra since 2009. Their call for repeal of the Affordable Care Act is gratuitous, but it has kept the base hopeful if not happy. Repeal is infinitely easier than proposing a replacement and Republicans have nothing to offer in its place. Maybe that is because the Affordable Care Act IS the Republican healthcare coverage position. Democrats advocated for a universal health coverage system, an expansion of Medicare. [Read more…]

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The Safety Pin

Many Resistance Groups have stood up against the horrible events in Charlottesville and have reacted against the unacceptable response of our President. It is now our turn in North San Diego County to show solidarity with our brothers and sisters in resistance to protest the white supremacist movement.